Oracle Layoffs: Hundreds, Not Thousands

Oracle has apparently ushered in the new year with a bit of a bloodletting. Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Tim Klasell says the company has sacked some employees in sales and marketing. “Our sense is that the current reduction was well planned and not a hasty reaction to an unplanned event,” he claims in a research note issued today.

Actually, it seems quite systematic. “It’s part of the global cost-cutting move,” one Oracle (ORCL) employee tells The Times of India, which notes that 40 workers were just let go at the company’s Bangalore offices. “This is just the initial move and the numbers will definitely increase. By next week, we should get the actual figures.”

Now, word on the street has it that the figure in question here is somewhere around 8,000. But there’s no mention of Oracle in the latest EDD Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification list, which would seem to suggest that 8,000 figure is bogus. And according to our sources it is. We’re told that layoffs are occurring, but that their number is in the hundreds, not thousands.